InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Of Fates Unknown ❯ Chapter Two ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer I don't own much. Of course this means Inuyasha and his crew.

Of Fates Unknown

Chapter Two

After a largely sleepless night during which she ventured many times to the mouth of the cave, Kagome roused Souta just after dawn, grateful that he had been able to sleep. Together, they went to the cave's entrance, then ventured out and stood there silently for a long time, their hands clasped.

The village lay in charred rubble. A few thin wisps of smoke still rose into the clear morning air. Nothing moved. Even the pens that had held the village's small herds of cattle and sheep were empty. The stables too were burned and the were no sign of their few horses.

"It's all gone." Souta said at last in a voice that belonged to a much younger child.

Kagome nodded, thinking of his use of the word "it" instead of "they" and wondering if that meant he hadn't yet accepted that not only was the village gone, but all the people as well.

She moved farther from the mouth of the cave and scanned the rocky hillside, seeking out the entrances of the other caves. She'd been telling herself all through the long night that others might have survived as well by hiding in the caves.

But now, as she stared at the empty landscape, she knew that could not have been the case. If anyone else had survived, they would be out here now as she was, or on the path down to the ruined village.

Still, she was reluctant to relinquish that last, faint hope. She turned to her brother, "Souta, I want you to stay here while I go to check the other caves."

"No!" He said, tightening his grip on her hand. "I want to stay with you, Gome- please!"

She gently withdrew the hand that he was clutching painfully and hugged him instead. She understood. He might not have fully accepted that all the others were dead, but he still felt an instinctive need to stay close to her now.

So they began their slow descent, pausing at each cave to check for other survivors. When they had searched the last cave in vain, Kagome once again tried to persuade him to say there while she went on to the village. But once again, he refused, clinging to her desperately. She put her hands on his shoulders and stared hard at him.

"Souta, do you understand what we may find there?"

Tears spilled out onto his cheeks as he nodded slowly. "Dead people- like Pappa."

"Not exactly like Pappa, he dead peacefully because he was sick. This will be much worse."

"I want to stay with you."

So they made their way, hand in hand, into the village. Some fires were still smoldering and traces of smoke wafted about in the morning breeze. A heavy, ugly stench hung over the village. It seemed so wrong that the sun should have arisen on a beautiful day when nothing but horror lay all around them.

For several dazed hours, they wandered around the only home they'd ever known. More than three hundred had lived here- and now there were none. The first of the bloody bodies they encountered left them both sick, but after a time, their benumbed brains simply refused to react. One or the other of them would from time to time call out a name as they recognized a body, but their voices were hollow and lifeless.

Of her own family, Kagome found not a trace. Most of the people, it seemed, had been burned to death inside their homes, probably kept there by gun-wielding Vali. The snug little cottage that had been her home all her life was reduced to heaps of charred rubble. They saw not one recognizable thing as they stared at it.

With the midday sun beating down on them, they trudged slowly back up the path to the caves. By the time they reached the one that had sheltered them the night before, they were both exhausted and fell asleep on the piles of blankets they'd found among the supplies.

The sun was setting by the time they awoke to relive the horror anew. They held each other and cried, as they had not done earlier, and then, driven by hunger, they dug into the food stores and ate without pleasure, but with very great need. After that, they left the cave and sat on the rocks to watch as twilight crept across the land, mercifully obscuring the devastation below.

"What will we do?" Souta asked after a long silence. "Where will we go?"

And Kagome gave the answer that was only then forming in her mind. "We will go home."

Souta nodded silently. He knew what she meant. This valley was not their home. Their true home lay many miles away to the east, across hills and across the sea and deep into other hills: the land of the Rheas, home to her people, the Ceadda.

~ )O( ~

Just after dawn the next day, Kagome and Souta left the village. They did not look back. Kagome told her brother that they must remember what had been, not what was now. Unable to risk building funeral pyres, as was the custom of her people, Kagome had knelt in front of the caves, with Souta at her side, and said the words of remembrance for all, and then the special words for her family.

Then they gathered the supplies and went deep into the cave that had sheltered them. There was a rear opening to a steep, precipitous path that would carry them out of the valley. She chose this much more difficult way because she feared that the Vali might still be in the pass- or near it.

Their descent was long and difficult. The path itself was steep and tortuous and their way was made even harder by the heavy burdens they both carried. They had brought along as much food as they could carry, a change of clothing for each of them- and the gold that had been stored in the cave long ago for just such an eventuality, gold that her people had brought with them when they fled the land of the Rheas.

Souta also carried his favorite toy, a small wooden puzzle made for him by his father. Kagome had her precious lythra, the instrument that had been passed down to her by her grandmother, since her mother had had not musical talents. Both these items had been with them they had gone to gather herbs, since it was their custom to carry them wherever they went.

The final item they carried was almost as precious as the gold: a carefully drawn map; made by one of the few who had escaped the slaughter of their people in the land of the Rheas over a hundred years ago. It was drawn on oiled skin and had been stored in the cave in a leather cylinder, and it showed the route the fleeing Ceadda had taken from their ancestral home to the valley. Kagome had studied it carefully and knew that they must travel due east until they reached the port city of Aegir.

She also knew that this first part of their long journey must be the most dangerous. IF they encountered any Vali, they would surely be captured, and most probable would be killed on the spot. Not only did they not speak the Vali's tongue, but their very appearances would give them away. The Vali were a fair-haired, light-skinned people, while Kagome and Souta were black haired and olive-skinned.

She took it as a sign of good fortune that the weather had turned much cooler, thereby allowing them to wear cloaks with hoods that could disguise them to some extent. But she knew that they could never survive close scrutiny by their enemy.

She hoped that they would be safe enough in the port of Aegir. The stories she'd heard indicated that it was a crossroads for many different peoples, although it was a Vali city. There she intended to use some of her gold to purchase their passage across the sea to the land of the Rheas.

Throughout the long day's journey, Kagome did not allow herself to think about what might happen when the finally reached their ancient homeland. But when night came and they made came, she sat awake long after Souta had fallen asleep and thought about their distant home.

According to the old stories, the Rheas had always been a warlike people, and they had always coveted the home of the Ceadda- a thriving walled city called Domna. After many years and many battles, their enemies had finally conquered them and captured Domna. Then they had killed all the Ceadda: women, children, and old people as well, showing no mercy- just as the Vali had done. But a small band of Ceadda had managed to escape and had fled across the sea to the isolated valley where Kagome had been born.

What little Kagome knew about her people's history had come mostly from her grandfather's stories. In the village school, their teachers had given the matter short shrift. They were here now and the past was of no importance because they could not return to in.

But her grandfather had talked once of Ceadda magic, although when she had pressed him with questions, he had uncharacteristically become quiet, shaking his gray head back and forth and muttering that "all that was past". And later, when Kagome had asked her mother what he'd meant by Ceadda magic, her mother had shrugged it off as the nonsensical ravings of an old man, even though her grandfather had seemed quite lucid to her.

She didn't believe in magic, since she'd never seen it. But when he'd spoken of it that one time, she'd felt something strange inside her- a sort of yearning. And she felt it again now, as she sat in the darkness with Souta snoring softly at her side. It was a yearning for a completeness, a wholeness- a sense that she was as yet somehow incomplete.

She dismissed those thoughts with a shake of her dark head. It was natural enough for her to be feeling that now, when she'd lost everything but Souta. Not a moment passed when she didn't think about the fact that the two of them were now the last of their people.

What would they find when they reached the land of the Rheas? Would they be able to fit in without drawing the attention to themselves? Surely the could; they were Rheas themselves, after all, and they spoke the same tongue. But what did it mean that she was also Ceadda? It was a question she'd asked many times as a child, but she'd never received a satisfactory answer.

"We're Rheas," her mother and her teacher had told her.

"But then why do we call ourselves Ceadda?" Kagome had persisted.

"Because we do," was the frustrating answer, generally followed by an exhortation to get back to her studies.

Years had passed since Kagome had given them any thought to that question. Not one else had ever seemed to care. But then, she thought sadly, no one else had ever faced what we face now. How she wished she knew more about what it meant to be not just Rhea but also Ceadda.

Souta began to cry softly in his sleep and she lay down beside him and drew him into her arms to comfort him, even as silent tears coursed down her own cheeks. Whatever it meant to be Ceadda, she and Souta were now the only ones left.

~ )O( ~

Domna ~ Irish Goddess of scared stones (it just seemed soooo appropriate a name for a city that Inuyasha ruled. It was either this or a forest god. But since this was also close to sounding like Dogman. I just couldn't resist.)

Rhea ~ Mother earth (um… yeah, sort of self explaining here.)

Vali ~ Hindu Destroyer Goddess (territory Sesshy controls, also seemed appropriate. Was a tie for either this or Ares, but Vali won.)

Ceadda ~ God of healing springs and sacred wells (seeing as this is who Kagome is a descendant of … once again it just seemed soooo appropriate.)

Aegir ~ Teutonic God of the Sea (Again, self explaining for a sea port.)

Well, another chapter posted. Please be sure to let me know what you think of the story so far. Reviews are always wonderful.

Brightest of Blessings,

Lady Banshee 999